


Bad Things Never Die

by SnailArmy



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, it's Sad Tim Hours, okay its kinda shippy but not terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22978027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnailArmy/pseuds/SnailArmy
Summary: Gunpowder Tim wins a war, only to find himself drafted into another one.act 1. interior: night. a shipment of troops en route to the moon. the war is just getting started in earnest. tim contemplates life, and the impossibility of death.act 2: interior (of the moon). time of day unknown. a trench near the Aristillus front. tim contemplates death, and the impossibility of life.act 3: error.act 4: interior. day. the moon kaiser's royal court. a last stand. tim contemplates death, and who deserves it.act 5: interior. night. a small venue in another place and time. a band performs. tim contemplates immortality.epilogue: forbidden Soft TimTitle from "Ethiopians" by the Mountain Goats"Good things never last / bad things never die"
Relationships: Bertie/Gunpowder Tim
Comments: 15
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

It's almost romantic. Tim finds himself reminded of late night bus rides, coming home with the marching band after an away football game. That quiet sense of camaraderie, of being exhausted but being _together_. Bertie is dozing off on his shoulder, and across the transport it seems like getting a few winks in before arrival is the popular option. Tim can't bring himself to doze off, though. To let their guard down with the war so close. 

After everything, they had gone to the recruiter's office and enlisted. They got a few judgemental looks, sure. Most of the other able-bodied young men had jumped at the chance for a "free moon vacation" or whatever the propaganda had called it. For Tim and Bertie to have held off for so long certainly looked suspicious. It was better than getting the letter, though. That their bodies and lives had been claimed as property of the Crown and would be shipped off to fight and die. No, this way they could pretend that they still had a choice. That they were going on their own terms. That they could come home. 

Bertie shifts in his sleep, bringing Tim's mind gently back to the present. Barely through basic training, and already Tim was finding it hard to remember civilian life. He decides instead to consider the future; after they had served their time and returned to what they had left waiting on earth. They could go out drinking, and share war stories with young people in bars. Probably people would buy their drinks, what with them being heroes and all. Tim chuckled, imagining the young women who would fall over themselves to ask about their scars. But he and Bertie would just share a knowing look and ask for the bill, because they would have a home to go back to and sleep the night off. Together. 

They would be the coolest couple in the retirement home, that was for sure. Tim laughs a little and rubs his palm over the rough canvas of his uniform. It's Moon Camouflage(tm), all grey and white to blend in with the chalky stone of the lunar surface. Everyone on the transport is wearing the exact same thing, in various shapes and sizes, but Tim likes to think that Bertie wears it best. The pale color accentuates the dark warmth of his skin, and the sleeves are just snug enough to reveal a hint of muscle. Tim might blush, if he wasn't so tired. There isn't enough light in the transport for anyone to see it anyway. 

The future is scary. This, more than anything else, had been drilled into Her Majesty's Royal infantry during basic training. Even the slightest mistake can be lethal and you have more than your own life in your hands. Somehow, though, Tim isn't scared. He has Bertie beside him, a hopeful song in his heart, and an unfounded but entirely certain feeling that _everything is going to be okay._


	2. Chapter 2

Tim doesn't remember how long he was supposed to serve for. Maybe a year, maybe two. It's possible that Bertie remembers, but Tim doesn't want him to dwell on the past four years any more than necessary. Every other member of their squad has been replaced several times since deployment, and who knows when they had originally arrived. The woman, Nenes, was older and still soft in a way that implied she had been drafted only recently. Jonny, on the other had, had been in the Starborne for at least as long as Tim and Bertie had been here and had bounced around from squadron to squadron, carnage in his wake. Tim tried very hard not to think about what it meant for his personal health and safety to be in close proximity to him. 

However long they had signed up for originally, they were still here now. And, Tim laughs bitterly, it wasn't like they could just walk home. It had become exceedingly clear that no one was leaving the moon in one piece until the Moon Kaiser was dead. Bertie gives him a concerned look. Nearly all of his looks are concerned, these days, but that does nothing to ease the twinge of pain in Tim's heart whenever he sees Bertie worrying about him. In fact, it makes it rather worse. 

Choosing to push aside any... _sentimental_ feelings, Tim shifts just a bit closer to Bertie, keeping his gun pointed over the edge of the foxhole and down the long dark tunnel that leads god-knows-where. Jonny ran off down it a few hours ago, yelling something about "some good violence," but Tim knows they aren't going to be rid of him that easily. At least it will give them a few moments of peace and quiet, what with Nenes busy working the radio. 

Bertie must sense the shift in Tim's demeanor, because he starts talking about home again. What they'll do after the war, how they'll catch up with their buddies. It's a tired game. They both know that home is gone, long dead along with the bright-eyed young men who left it. Their souls have been worn down by miles of bloodstained regolith and years of warfare. For a moment, Tim is certain that they're going to die up here, like all the rest. 

But Bertie catches him off guard, adds some new detail to their pastoral fantasy of escape. Maybe they would raise cows, fluffy highland ones. And they'd be so tame, they'd eat right out of your hand. 

It isn't a lot, but it's enough to remind Tim of what home really is. And his heart lies with Bertie, he's sure of it, the same as the dog tags fastened around his neck. He doesn't need to leave the moon to be back where he belongs. He just looks at Bertie and smiles. No Queen, no Kaiser, could take this moment away from him. 

Then the sirens go off, and chaos reigns. Tim doesn't look, doesn't think, just dives under the lead sheet because his life depends on it. He feels one, two bodies join him in quick succession, and stops counting. Jonny can take care of himself, he's a tough old bastard. And if not, hell, maybe they'd get someone competent in. Unlikely, but there wasn't much Tim can actually do in this situation but hope and try to keep his mind off, well, everything. 

The sirens are loud, and Tim is trying his best to tune everything out, so when he hears his name being shouted from somewhere else under the sheet he just sticks his hand in that direction for Bertie to hold. He can't quite turn his head, and the voice is muffled and distorted, but having something to hold on to seems to help. Bertie hesitates a moment before he takes it, and they wait out the microwave attack together. 

Until it ends, and Tim turns to laugh with Bertie and share a "See, that wasn't so bad," because it isn't Bertie who called his name and it isn't Bertie he's been hanging on to for dear life. It's Jonny d'Ville, and Nenes is sitting there too, staring at him, and by the time Tim's brain can catch up with what must have happened the edges of his vision are dark and there's a gun in his hand. Bertie--his body, at least--is still leaning, half over the foxhole, a hand reaching out into the black. 

Tim fucking loses it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey this one is a bit gorier than the others and has a major tw for suicidal ideation / suicide attempts. stay safe out there.

Tim fucking loses it. 

He can _feel_ the part of him that's missing. 

He can feel it, and it hurts. 

So he plans to die. 

And while he dies, he plans to kill as many of the Kaiser's cattle as he possibly can. 

Slaughter, as it turns out, is much easier when you have absolutely zero regard for your own safety. 

He barely notices D'Ville tagging along beside him, adding his own brand of violence to Tim's holy crusade. When he does, he unloads a clip into his smug face. 

Jonny D'Ville, Tim figures, is the reason why Bertie is dead. Therefore, he is no different from the Kaiser's men, and deserves to be shot. 

The face of surprise and elation that Jonny makes as his body is torn apart might haunt Tim's nightmares, if he ever intended to sleep again.

When Tim runs out of ammunition only to discover that he still, somehow, isn't dead, he checks that his bayonet is properly affixed, and makes the charge; runs ahead to the rhythm of the gunshots still ringing in his ears.

The cheap bayonet snaps off in someone's thigh, so he starts clawing at whatever he can find. Eyes, nose, wherever he can make it hurt. In his fumbling, he finds a holster with a pistol still in it, and fires til it's empty. 

It feels neither right nor good, but at point blank range even his shaking hands find their mark, and two more Lennys pay for what they've done. 

The sight brings him no joy, so he takes what weapons he can from their corpses and pushes further into the tunnels. He doesn't take their rations, or first aid. He doesn't intend to need them. 

Tim goes on like this. 

Every person that fails to kill him just makes him angrier, more desperate. He tries every stupid thing he was taught would get him killed, and none of them work. 

He makes it through what must be damn near the whole army before his "luck" runs out, and a sniper lines up a shot while he's locked in combat with two infantrymen and what must be a medic.

Tim never thought much about what happened to you when you died, but he smiles as he feels the burning pain of a rifle bullet find its mark in his shoulder at last. Maybe he's going home to Bertie. 

At the very least, he won't be going home without him. 

Tim staggers, falls, and collapses on the ground.


	4. Chapter 4

Tim is cold, and his shoulder hurts. 

He is, notably, not dead. 

How unfortunate. 

Slowly, he comes to, taking in his surroundings one sense at a time. The ground where he seems to be kneeling is cold and hard, but not rocky like the tunnels. It's smooth and intentional, most likely an actual floor. The room is nearly silent, but each small noise echoes unpleasantly. The lingering taste of blood in his mouth drowns out any smells that may exist, and that leaves only sight. 

Tim blinks his eyes open, and the vision that greets him makes his blood run cold. Tim's never seen him in person before, and rarely heard him described, but the man on the throne with the crooked crown and crooked-er smile can only be the Moon Kaiser. He can't even find it in himself to be mad, or scared--all of that was left on the battlefield. For a moment, Tim is resigned to his fate, ready for the death he fought desperately for in the tunnels. The memories are fuzzy, and he can hardly distinguish them as his own. The only proof he has at all are the bloodstains on his uniform and the pain wracking his body and mind. What was he fighting for? All the gunpowder in the moon couldn't bring Bertie back. 

The tunnels had been nothing but a funnel of death and suffering, a perfect place for a debauched massacre. It's different, here. The reckless bloodshed of war is far away. Here is quiet, and calm, and Tim can think again. The Kaiser is talking, but Tim finds himself rather distracted. Behind the throne is a great picture window, looking out over the Earth and all of space behind it. From it, he can see London, or at least the British Isles. Okay, maybe it's a cloudy patch where Tim is pretty sure the British Isles _should_ be. But it's enough. Thoughts of home, of peace, of rest, they all come flooding back to him. Someone needs to bring home Bertie's story, and Tim realizes all at once that it needs to be him. 

But the room is full of heavily armed guards, and a despot bragging of execution. Tim is going to die in here, and the Moon Kaiser is going to destroy the home he'll never return to. 

That's when the Kaiser has a box brought to the throne, and retrieves the severed head of the one and only Jonny D'Ville. The head that Tim had, very recently, filled with lead. D'Ville gives him a cheeky wink. Suddenly, things stop making sense, and Tim forms a plan. 

There--to his left side, another familiar face. At one point his captain, and an enemy lieutenant, and now a royal guard. He had once seen it follow an order to charge into a hopeless battle. An order that came from the other side. It was a long shot, but it just might work. And if he's going to die anyway, might as well bring down someone who deserved it. 

"Fight!"

In the ensuing chaos, Tim springs immediately to the first of his two tasks. The lunar cannon's control panel is sitting out in the open, with a single person currently sitting at it. He dispatches them quickly, and starts pressing buttons. There's a dial that looks promising, so he gives it a 180-degree spin, and feels enormous machinery shift and groan somewhere far under his feet. Among several other buttons and flashing lights is a keypad with numbers, but given the sounds of violence behind him Tim doesn't have much time. Instead, he contrives a way to light the cannon's fuse manually, and begins on his second task: surviving. 

A quick survey of the exits reveals a small, heavily-armored door that Tim decides is his most likely bet. Inside is a decadent lifepod, but Tim barely has time to confirm that it will in fact sustain his life before he gets to work on sealing the door. The cannon's fuse wasn't particularly long, so he doesn't have much time, and the damn visor is stuck, and--

Tim's world goes white, then red, then black, in very rapid succession. Maybe he laughs, maybe he screams, likely he is silent. There is no one around to hear him. 

The pain and shock cause him to lose consciousness almost immediately, which is likely for the best. He doesn't have time to think about all the people in the moon, fighting for their families and freedom the same as he was. He doesn't have time to calculate his own slim odds of survival, and he certainly doesn't have time to think about Bertie. He's simply gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Gigs are good. Get on solid ground, have a few drinks, perform for a crowd of stinking, drooling locals. Patrons are easy to impress, and easier to replace. Sure, the people of this planet are particularly ugly and moist, but even when Jonny tells them that they just cheer and jeer with renewed vigor. Dumb bastards, wouldn't know real music if it shot them in the chest. 

Gunpowder Tim looks to Jonny for some indication of what set they're playing tonight. That's the best part of playing a show; the playing, singing, losing yourself in someone else's story. For a night Tim can be a disgraced doctor, or a goddess willing to sacrifice everything so long as her wife stands by her side. Even when he steps into the role of a warmonger or doomed rebel, there is a comfortable distance between himself and his reality. It's probably the closest thing he has to a healthy coping mechanism. 

But Jonny takes his time in introducing the crew, and Tim realizes with dread that tonight they will be playing their various origin songs. Easy enough for Jonny, whose origin is entirely fabricated, or Ashes, whose story ends with them vindicated and triumphant. Marius and Raph don't even have songs, yet, and Brian has barely any part in performing his song. 

Tim, however, gets the pleasure of reliving the worst experiences of his life in vivid detail over the course of five agonizing songs. All while Jonny fucking D'Ville takes every opportunity to mock and belittle his mortal life. It's all he can do to keep the manic grin on his face, lest he let the genuine fury and grief show through and absolutely ruin the mood. 

But he gets through it. He always does, somehow. Sometimes they'll go a few years without doing that set, and Tim dares to get his hopes up. Someday, maybe, Jonny will get bored with that particular story, and Tim will finally be able to let it go. To forget about the life he left behind and embrace, fully, his new existence as a space pirate. 

In a way, though, it's nice. For a night, he can have Bertie by his side again, even if it is for the sole purpose of dying horribly. And it's not like Tim has much say in the matter when Jonny's around. 

Tim considers his relationship with Jonny. It's... complicated. While Jonny's admiration for and camaraderie with the man he knows as Gunpowder Tim is actually quite straightforward, Tim finds himself experiencing the whole situation with quite a lot of guilt, fear, and anger. He never chose to become a Mechanism. That was Jonny's little "gift" to him, or perhaps Dr. Carmilla's gift to Jonny. Tim's eternal reward for being entertaining. 

Because that's all it was, wasn't it? Tim hadn't been chosen for his skill with a rifle, or his sparking personality, or even his frankly fantastic hair. He had lost his closest friend and dealt with the emotional fallout in such an unhealthy way that an immortal sadist decided he would be a good fit for their little _band._

Tim finds himself struggling to concentrate on his guitar playing, but it doesn't seem like anyone noticed. If they did, they were pretending otherwise. Despite their constant physical proximity, the Mechanisms as a whole did not often talk about their feelings. They preferred to sing about them or shoot about them, with occasional allowances for both at the same time. 

Through the years, however, Tim had experienced several revelations about himself. There were two that weighed heavily on him tonight, brought forth with the musical memories of his mortal life. The first: he never wanted to be the brutal, self-destructive person he was when Bertie died. The memory had faded, some, and he could never remember exactly what happened between the foxhole where Bertie's body lay charred and the foot of the Moon Kaiser's throne. But he could recall with perfect clarity the feelings; physical things tearing at him from inside, pulling him apart in his rage and grief. They still haunted him, sometimes, in his dreams. He did not particularly care for them.

The second revelation, which was altogether more troubling, was that Tim felt obligated to perform violence for the sake of one Jonny D'Ville. Jonny had saved him from the wreckage of the moon and given him eternal life, in his fashion. But the man Jonny saved was not the man Tim wanted to be. 

Tim let out a small sigh as the band prepared for a rousing rendition of Drunk Space Pirate. Soon, the concert would be over, and they'd be off again. To some other world where everything would be the same. But Jonny was having so much fun, prancing around the stage and waving his gun about. Tim didn't want to spoil his fun tonight.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a lot softer/sillier than the rest of the fic! Disregard it if you wish!

The venue had cleared out; the survivors to their homes, those less fortunate to the dumpsters out back. The Mechanisms were cleaning their instruments and preparing to take their leave on the Aurora. There's a tired quiet hanging in the air, each band member having spent all their feral energy in performance. Tim tends to enjoy this part of the night; it's peaceful, almost. As peaceful as life gets when you spend it with a group of trigger-happy immortal space pirates. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Tim notices Jonny stepping out a side door, cigarette in hand. This isn't unusual, but something about the moment tugs at Tim's heartstrings. They need to talk. They can't ignore it forever, despite hundreds years of evidence to the contrary. Tim snaps shut the lock on his guitar case and follows Jonny out the door. 

The alley is small, and deserted, and smells quite a bit like vomit. Jonny sits perched atop a trash can like some sort of horrible raccoon, smoking like he has nothing better to do. He barely looks up when Tim leans against the wall across from him. Somewhere, the sun is barely risen, allowing just enough light for Jonny to see the determination and trepidation on Tim's face. Tim, being possessed of mechanical eyes, can see Jonny perfectly. 

Tim is the first to break the silence. "It's not my favorite song."

"What?" Jonny looks up at him, hand half-raised to his mouth to take another drag. 

"The brutal hymn of gunpowder. It's not my favorite song."

Jonny doesn't reply, but finishes his cigarette and flicks it onto the ground. 

"Not that you ever asked, but it's Run Away With Me by Carly Rae Jepsen." Tim takes his leave, then, and goes back inside. He slings his guitar case onto his back and walks out the front, not waiting for the rest of the band or replying to their protests. By the time he's back on the Aurora, his heart rate is almost returned to normal. At least, until he hears the knock at his door. 

It's Jonny, of course, who is standing awkwardly in the doorframe even as Tim makes a motion for him to enter. "Listen- Tim-"

He pauses, as if he expects Tim to interrupt him, to say it's fine, to ask him to leave. Tim remains silent.

Jonny sighs, and continues. "I'm... sorry. I thought enough time had passed and you'd be over it, but I should have asked you first. And probably consulted you on the writing. I'll try to do better next time."

The words hang heavy in the air for several long moments. Jonny is half a second away from shooting Tim and hightailing it out of there when Tim lunges for him, wrapping him in a crushing embrace. Jonny's first reflex is to shoot anyway, but instead he wraps his arms around his friend and returns the hug. 

It's hard to say how long they stay like that, silently communicating all the pain and grief that has built up between them. Eventually, though, one of them releases the other and Jonny almost sprints out the door. Neither of them mention it again.

Far away, in engineering, Nastya watches the video recording with a wide grin on her face. Finally, that fucker managed to express a _single_ emotion without being forced at gunpoint. She high-fives the Aurora, somehow, and they resolve to be just a little bit nicer to Jonny. For, like, a day or two. A few hours, at least.


End file.
